Sandy Pendragon fixed an angry glare on the foreman and warned him, "This court is perfectly able to tell the time. One more outburst and you'll swing!"
Mitchell started and sat down. Sandy leaned back, smiling to herself.
THE TWO J-MEN bombed along on the Service scooter, a small ground-effect vehicle similar to an old-style motorcycle. CL-arium gravity reflectors made the vehicle very fuel-efficient.
Ahead, the ground was completely flat except for the metal rail, pointing the way across the broad Planitia Caloris, the hot plain. The sky above was black, and dotted with stars; only at the horizon was there any clew to the atmosphere, a greenish-purple haze.
To the right, the tapering end of the range called Montes Caloris del norte neared the city path. Here the track ran through a pass several miles wide. A number of small ridges crossed this open space, beyond which the Star Service boys could see the broad dark squares of the solar-collection panels.
Heavy cables set into the soil led from these to a long copper-sheathed section of the great rail.
But it was the ridges that interested Wild Bill. He leaned back from the handlebars, touching helmets with Jack Flynn. In this manner, they could communicate without using radio.
"Ambush time?"
"Who's doing the ambushing?" Jack asked.
"Better us than them."
Jack agreed, and they coasted to a stop a hundred yards short of the last ridge before the solar panels. The ridge stood up like the fin of an ancient dimetrodon, canted slightly to the east. Bill and Jack ran to the north end, and peeked around.
Sure enough, there were three figures in heavy space gear, all facing the track, waiting in ambuscade.
Bill gave the "let's go" signal, and they started forward. About twenty feet short, Wild Bill leaped into the air. Jack kept running.
Just as Webbe crashed into two of the bushwhackers, Jack Flynn tripped on something. Before he could even sprawl to the ground, he and the others were slammed sidewise into the ridge by a tremendous explosion!!
ALLESANDRA PENDRAGON BEETLED her brow and frowned at the proceedings before her. It had become clear that the acts of sabotage were grievous indeed, and the boys who had committed them were in for long sentences. It was also clear to her that this Mis'ess Cabanne was guilty of cheating the boys and was ultimately responsible for the problem.
But evidentiary proof of the former had been offered, while only the claim of some now vanished paragraphs supported the latter. These two attorneys were about to present their final arguments, and unless something new turned up fast, the sappers were going down and the Cabanne was going to walk.
Sandy held the sappers’ copies of the contract in her left hand, studying the last page of each, flipping among the copies to compare. The last page had one final paragraph followed by signatures and counter-signatures, and looked legitimate.
But more than half the sheet was blank, and Sandy concentrated on this, angling the paper and trying to detect any difference in the index of refraction, which would indicate the absence of previously visible markings.
None was obvious to the naked eye.
"There are tests that should reveal any disappearing ink that may have been used," Sandy mused aloud.
"Objection! The Court is presupposing guilt on the part of my client," Mis’ess Cabanne’s counsel spoke up.
Sandy banged her gavel, and spoke harshly. "Court is presuming nothing! Court is attempting to learn the facts in this case to evaluate the motivations of the accused!"
Prosecutor Porter began to say, "The motivations of these men are immaterial. The fact is that they did commit—"
He was interrupted by the entrance of Sky Marshal Wild Bill Webbe and Captain Jack Flynn, who were herding three unhappy figures in front of them. A commotion arose as the sappers began to fire questions at the newcomers.
Sandy banged her gavel sharply. "Order! Order! I will have order in this court! Bailiff!"
Deputy Scanlon waded into the crowd and presently had order restored.
Sandy looked down at Bill and said, "Marshal Webbe, you are an officer of this court. What is the meaning of this interruption?"
"Your Grace, we have a problem far more serious than the prosecution of these defendants."
"Proceed," she ordered.
"Captain Flynn and I have been outside the city. We left in an attempt to prevent the threatened destruction of the solar-power collector station." He paused, trying to decide how much of the story to detail, but Sandy impatiently gestured for him to get on with in, so he cut to the chase.
But Jack spoke up first, sheepishly. "We surprised these three men lying in ambush near the solar panels. But the batteries have been destroyed!"
Chapter Three
City in Real Trouble
THE MAYOR BLANCHED, and all but fainted. Mitchell jumped up, shouting, "You idiots! I told you not to set off those explosives!"
Sandy gaveled him quiet. "Don't start with that ‘bluff’ business, Mister Mitchell. In light of this, it's hardly believable any more."
Jack spoke up. "Uh... Even though there were explosives planted, they may have been bluffing."
Sandy stared at him. Whose side was he on?
"Uh... They didn't exactly blow up the solar collector. I did."
This was met with general hub-bub.
"There was a booby trap set up. I accidentally triggered it, and blew up the solar panels."
Sandy said, "Then we'd better declare this court in recess." She banged her gavel.
SHUCKING HER ROBES, she jumped down to the floor, circling the crowd of defendants to where the Mayor slumped. Deputy Scanlon began to guide the sappers back to the holding area for the time being.
Jack and Bill joined Sandy, who was seeing to the Mayor. Esther Cabanne, across the courtroom, stood and began to sidle toward the door. Her movement caught Sandy's eye.
At first unconcerned, the Princess abruptly became suspicious, and snapped out an order. "Bill – take that woman into custody! Don't let her get away." This giving orders was getting easy. It was as if she'd been born to it. Which was sort of what they'd told her back when she'd signed on for this gig.
Wild Bill, no slouch himself, popped up and told Cabanne that he was indeed taking her into custody.
She all but shot daggers from her eyes at him. "On what charge?" she demanded.
"No charge. It's on the house. Protective custody, Ma'am, until we can assess the situation."
Meantime, Sandy was reviving the Mayor. "It's all right, Sir."
He looked up, wide-eyed. "It is not all right. Our batteries are almost dead, and now there's no place to re-charge them!
"We're going to suffocate and freeze in the dark. We're all going to die!"
Sandy looked up at Jack. It seemed cruel to point out that the Star Service crew could leave at any time. Besides, they were the heroes, right? They'd have to think of something.
"Calm down. We're not all going to die," she said. She paused, and looked up at Jack. "Are we?"
He held up his palms, backing away from the question. "Hey, I'm just a rocket jockey. You want me to fly you someplace... ."
She made a face at him, but then grew thoughtful.
"You've got an idea," Jack said with a smile. "What's up?"
"I do want you to fly me someplace... sort of!"
TEN MINUTES LATER, Allesandra was standing on a planter near the airlock, head and shoulders above a good-sized crowd of sappers, scientists, and merchants.
Once she'd gotten them settled down, she spoke. "We've got a real problem here, men! This city is almost out of power, and the next re-charge station has been wrecked."
The crowd began to react, and not favorably.
She raised her hands to quiet them, not quite so successfully. "The only chance we have is to reach the battery beyond the one that's out of commission."
The crowd responded, and the question bubbled up, "How?"
"We just need to give this city a pu
sh!" She pointed to the airlock. "And out there are a whole bunch of ramrods!
"First of all," she called, "Mayor! Are the mattresses in this place fiber or gas?"
"Huh?"
"The mattresses – are they the sort you blow up or the old-fashioned cotton kind?"
"Uhhh... ." the Mayor didn't get it. But then he said, "Cotton, I guess. Most of them."
"Super. I need every fiber mattress in town. Go get 'em!"
The people stared up in confusion, and the Mayor quietly asked, "What's the idea?"
"We need fenders," Sandy said, as though that simple statement explained everything.
Apparently it explained enough, for the Mayor shouted, "You heard the Princess! Get goin'!"
Sandy hopped down, cutting through the moving crowd to where her crewmates had gathered. They had picked the threshold of a saloon because four of them had already been inside when the commotion began.
She waved the others off to help mattress gathering, but stopped Prof Morfett from following.
Listed on the ship's rolls as Pharmacists’ Mate, T. Garrison Morfett was the closest thing Thetis had to a medical officer and, there not being much doctoring needed on the corvette, he also practiced his hobby, cooking. But he was also a genuine genius, and frequently his abilities as an abstract thinker had saved the day for the J-men.
This time his brain was needed only to juggle a few dozen numbers for Her Grace. Sandy sat him down at a table in the saloon, and explained what she needed.
At first he just stared at her in astonishment. He hadn't realized what her idea was. But as she detailed it further, he got behind it and began punching numbers into his pocket computer. Presently he scrawled some very long numbers on a bar napkin, and then returned to button-pushing.
Sandy left him to it, and went to check on the mattresses. But at the pub door, she ran into the widow Cabanne, who was hopping mad.
"Just who I was looking for! That deputy marshal won't let me leave!"
"That's right," Sandy assured her. "You're staying right here, and sharing in whatever trouble there is to be shared."
Mis'ess Cabanne sputtered. "Young woman, do you realize who I am?"
Sandy stood up as straight as she could, and took a deep breath. "Madam, do you realize who I am?"
"I don't care if you're Jesus Christ in a dress! I am Esther Cabanne, and I could buy and sell you a million times over and never miss the cash!"
Sandy frowned at her and planted fists on her hips. "Granny, I am a Noble of The Empire. You couldn't even make a down payment on me."
"Hah! Everybody has their price!" Cabanne sneered.
"Not everyone can be bought for money! I work for somebody who's given me more than you could ever understand." She didn't detail what she'd been given, trust, authority, autonomy, and faith, because they were things a mere billionaire wouldn't understand. Actually, Sandy herself was a little surprised at how easily her loyalty had been bought, but knew that she'd made a good bargain. Every day, it seemed, she received another indication of how well her character had been assessed by The Empire.
"And not only aren't you leaving at the moment, I am hereby commandeering your yacht! So go relax and have a glass of water or something, and get out of my way. Cinnabar may not have a brig, but Thetis does!"
Shocked, Esther Cabanne backed away. Allesandra strode off, a proud figure. She'd faced down the wicked witch and was still standing.
THINGS MOVED LIKE greased lightning from that point. Men and women returned from the upper floors of the city, each dragging an old-style cotton-batting mattress liberated from somebody's bedroom or a sofa cushion – anything soft and puffy.
More difficult to haul through space than the gas-filled sort, batting mattresses were still preferred by most Earth people, and so were dragged anywhere Man made a long-term home.
Piled up in front of a closed ice cream and air shoppe, the mattresses and cushions were soon stacked thirty deep. The big cargo doors of the airlock were opened, and mattresses tossed in by a bucket-brigade line.
It required a dozen cycles to get all the stuff out onto the broad back deck. As the chamber decompressed, each mattress puffed up briefly until all the air inside leaked out. Members of the crew of Thetis came out with plastic sheeting, ropes, electrical cords, and tape.
While one group draped mattresses over the back end of the landing stage, and a second piled them up along the city wall, others swathed the noses of all the space ships with mattresses and plastic bags stuffed with pillows, cushions, and some stuffed animals Jack Flynn had found when he boarded the Cabanne yacht.
Fortunately for Sandy's plan, all of the spacecraft docked at Cinnabar were equipped with either gravity-reflector panels or low-speed manipulator rockets.
Guided by a gang of newly trained batmen, pilots lifted off and nosed their ships around gently into place. Cushioned by the huge unsightly padding, the spaceship noses eased into contact with the two rear faces of the crippled moving city.
Even in two-fifths of a "G" the huge metropolis had tremendous mass, and the assorted ships, powered variously by rockets, Thanhouser turbines, and possibly gerbils on methadrine. Like the Sangan cruiser, Cabanne's yacht utilized the Conestoga star-drive, which few private parties could afford, even the very small model used by the rich lady's boat.
With agonizing slowness, all those ships began to overcome the inertia of the creeping city, pushing it faster and faster. In the city's control center, located on the leading edge, two engineers watched a graphics display of the wall, on which a black line marked the right-of-way. A green square marked the proper location of Cinnabar. But a red square trailing along too far behind indicated its current spot. A text read-out below gave numbers.
"Mayor," an engineer spoke into a telephone, "Speed point eight of normal. ...Point nine... ...Normal speed. ...One point one."
SITTING AT HIS desk in City Hall, the Mayor balanced his telephone handset on his shoulder, and relayed this news to Sandy and Prof, who had moved from the saloon and now sat at a table covered with thin sheets of paper, each of which was covered with pencil scrawls.
Morfett touched his communicator badge, saying, "Pat, I need figures on fuel consumption. Stat!"
The Mayor was confused. "What's wrong? Your plan seems to be working fine. We've got a crew getting ready to repair the solar collector, the city batteries are ready for re-charging. Everything's, well, maybe not fine, but getting there."
Sandy turned to Morfett, who was punching numbers into his computer with one hand and scribbling with the other. After a moment hung with suspense, he looked up, and he wasn't happy.
He shook his head. "We're not going to make it."
The Mayor started. "What? How could we not make it?"
"It's taking everything those ships have to push this city along. But more than half of those ships are chemical rockets.
"Shortly, those rockets are going to fizzle out, and the other ships can't push it alone."
"I've put out a distress call," the Mayor said.
Sandy snorted. "Marshal Webbe sent a distress message before he returned to the city. There isn't another ship of any size closer than the Belt at the moment. If this city stops moving, it'll be almost over a week before help arrives."
The Mayor knew what that meant, maybe a hundred people could be evacuated on the remaining ships, but those who stayed faced death, sure and slow. In Cinnabar, total battery failure would mean no light and no heat. The water would freeze, the plants die. Dead plants wouldn't absorb carbon dioxide, and eventually those left behind would exhaust all the oxygen. He had no idea how long it would take, or how much it would hurt. And he didn't want to find out.
"What can we do?"
"Lighten the load," Morfett said. "Pitch overboard whatever you can get along without, or whatever'll survive the surface."
The Mayor sighed deeply. Then a new voice spoke up, first clearing its throat.
"Ma'am? Uh, Your Grace?"
Sandy turned to see Mitchell, with Tindall and some of the other sappers, standing in the doorway.
"Oh, for cryin’ out loud," the Princess griped. "Haven't we had enough trouble from you guys?"
"Please, Your Grace. We want to help."
"Haven't you helped enough?"
"Ma'am, we didn't blow up the solar battery."
Sandy was stopped by that, and sighed. She didn't bring up the point that they had planted the explosives. "All right. How can you help?"
"Well, I was listenin’ to your professor here. You need more push, right?"
Sandy nodded.
"Well, in the vehicle docks under the landin’ stage are all our mining trucks 'n’ stuff. We've got skip-loaders, back-hoes, dump trucks, tractors, ’n’ borers. Most a’ that stuff could help push 'n’ keep up with the rocketships—"
Sandy snapped her fingers as her visage brightened. "And the ones that can't can still drive under their own power and lighten the load."
Mitchell stood for a moment, looking pleased.
Sandy snapped at him, "Well, get cracking!"
He got.
FROM HATCHES IN the sides of the city, ramps appeared a few minutes later. A rag-tag assortment of tractors, trucks, and other machines rolled down these curved ramps and bumped onto the Mercurian soil.
Most of the spacecraft pushing from ground level moved away and trucks eased into their spots. The space ships found new sites along the rear wall.
One enterprising rocket jock uprighted his pinnace, pressing the ventral surface against the wall and pushing with his dorsal jets.
A new collection of vehicles emerged from below the landing deck, strange little exploratory cars made mostly of Perspex. Some of these hauled trailers loaded with sealed containers.
Soon the city of Cinnabar was the focal point of a great caravan of cars, trucks, and spaceships, all striving for the sight of a thin fuzzy line of greenish-purple. Slowly the city's velocity increased, even though the fuel consumption-per-unit of time in the rockets went down.
Planet Patrol: The Interplanetary Age (Star Service Book 1) Page 6